Green eggs and spam

The hashtag #Cruzcontrol was trending on Twitter overnight but there appeared to be no controls on Texas Republican Sen. Ted Cruz as he engaged in a solitary and fruitless effort to hijack the federal government.

Denied a filibuster, the freshman senator chose to make his one-man stand against the Affordable Care Act with a rambling, 21-hour talkathon that ended Wednesday when his time ran out and the Senate got down to real business.

Mr. Cruz unleashed a relentless flow of verbal spam, most of it about himself, and some of it outrageous — comparing health care reform to the Nazi invasion of Europe, for example.

He also offered some personal details, such as “I’m a big fan of White Castle burgers.”

But perhaps his most bizarre act was to read from the beloved Dr. Seuss children’s book “Green Eggs and Ham” — with a political twist. He used the book, in which the character claims to hate green eggs and ham, as a metaphor for the health care law.

Americans don’t like green eggs and ham and “they did not like Obamacare either,” he said.

But maybe Mr. Cruz never read the ending in which the character actually loves the green eggs and ham once he tastes them, proclaiming “I will eat them anywhere!”

Americans, as they taste health care reform, are liking it more and more. And that’s what Mr. Cruz and his tea party ilk fear.